Weyerbacher Insanity

Brewed by Weyerbacher Brewing Co.
Style: Barley Wine
Easton, Pennsylvania USA

Beautiful pour. It’s the color of maple syrup, but with crystalline highlights, and lots of gorgeous swirling bubbles. Aroma of bourbon and sweet malty grain. Huge tastes of vanilla, bourbon, oak, and also a little port wine, with just-sweet-enough caramel malt, and an undercurrent of classic barleywine flavor. Though the mouthfeel is creamy, the alcohol presence is perfect, just sharp enough. Complex, bracing, and delicious.

In the bomber bottle at The Brickskeller. Okay, it’s crazy to drink a bomber of Insanity before getting on a plane, but I blame Dave Alexander for not sharing it with me. Pour is gorgeous amber with a butterscotch hue. Thick off-white yellowish head. Smells like Mrs. Butterworth syrup on hot pancakes. Amazing. Intense sweetness. Very buttery, but in a candy sweet way, not a microwave popcorn way. The alcohol is sneaky. It doesn’t burn on the way down the esophagus, but rather burns the top of your gastric cavity only. Perhaps, if acetone were a foodstuff instead of a solvent, it would taste like this. And I don’t mean that in a negative way. It’s just that strong. Here’s what it is not: it is not fruity. It is not super-hopped (by the discernment of the palate). This simply breaks a lot of BW rules. Of course, I love it. This beer is woefully underappreciated by the non-barleywine worshipping philistines that give it an average rating of 3.7 as of this posting.

The color is cloudy with a redish orange tint to it. The nose has an insane hop bitterness with booze evaporating right off as it warms. There is also the smell of oak trees. As you take a sip you get bombarded with bitter hops and smooth caramel malt with some vanilla and alphalfa. You can reall taste the sweet burbon and oak from which the beer was aged in. The finish is very bitter with a good amount of carbonation on the palate.

22oz bottle. Pours a cloudy, dark caramelly brown color with a sudsy, off-white head that leaves some spider web lace. Smells of booze, bourbon, vanilla and wood. Smells nice enough I guess. Tastes way too strong, way too much booze, whiskey for me. There are nice notes of vanilla and malt but the amount of booze almost makes me gag. FUll body with good carbonation. Much alcohol burn throughout this one.

Pours a slightly hazy amber color with very thin white head. No real lacing. Aroma of toffee, vanilla, caramel, and sweet malts. Flavors of about the same with the oakiness to it also. Hides the alcohol well in the taste, but you can definitely feel it.

Super coconutty aroma that carries though to the flavor. Flavor is replete with dried bananas, apples, and dates.

Pours muddy amber color. Hardly any head, but has some nice bourbon and oak flavors peeking throughout the drink. Not the best beer I’ve had, but solid. Alcohol is very present in this one and is very dominate, still needs more age.

OH yea, big beer alright, with a 11% abv. Volatile, mean sweet aroma. Cloudy iced tea color. Carbonation? What carbonation? Forget about the fizz, this stuff has and alky impact that is soon observed. Rude, unfriendly and whiskyfied. Way too much of a big beer for this session lover. Talk about BIG? Terrible alky drink. Same enjoyability level as an american malt liquor, perfect for this style!